University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Time's Up
October 17, 2011 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
Oct. 17, 2011
by Lee Pace
The Tar Heels' pain and frustration were embodied in jersey No. 2 as the final gun sounded Saturday afternoon in Kenan Stadium. Bryn Renner's white pants where splotched with green grass stains, more than you'd like to see on a quarterback whose job is to distribute the ball. His gait was unsteady, both of his ankles heavily swathed in white adhesive tape. His eye-black was smudged across his troubled face, almost running down into his patchy beard stubble. Renner trudged slowly past teammate Jonathan Cooper, who was kneeling in the late afternoon sun, spent and exhausted with his head hung between his knees.
Somewhere you could hear the gravelly voice of Vince Lombardi: "We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time."
The Miami Hurricanes hit the Tar Heels with a svelte left lead and a vicious right cross Saturday afternoon before many fans had even bought their popcorn and settled into their seats, bolting to a 14-0 lead and sending the Tar Heels reeling. Miami scored on all five of its first-half possessions and led 27-3 before Carolina could catch its breath, gather its wits and eventually scrape and claw its way back into a late threat. The game ended at 30-24 Miami with the Tar Heels making a last gasp try from the Miami 37 yard-line on a series of laterals that was finally snuffed when Jheranie Boyd was run out of bounds at the Hurricane 24.
"We got behind the eight-ball early, and it's hard to come back that far," said cornerback Charles Brown, who distinguished himself with one jarring tackle, a remarkable pass breakup in the end zone and had a kick-off return for a touchdown nullified by a sloppy and unnecessary block in the back. "You have to start fast and finish strong. We didn't start fast today."
"We knew they were going to come back," Miami coach Al Golden added. "We knew the surge was going to be there. We tried to fend it off. We did just enough to win the game."
The Tar Heels drop to 5-2 and now have two losses in the ACC Coastal Division before traveling to Clemson to face the eighth-ranked and unbeaten Clemson Tigers at noon on Saturday. The medical reports will be of crucial importance this week, as Renner, Zach Brown and Tim Jackson were treated for sprained ankles and starters Cam Holland and Jonathan Smith and reserve A.J. Blue missed yet another game. Starting middle linebacker Kevin Reddick returned to the field after suffering an ankle injury against East Carolina and missing the Louisville game, but the Tar Heel coaching and training staffs continue to tip-toe that delicate line between giving players time to heal to a hundred percent and urgently needing their presence on the field.
"It's doing fine, nothing too serious," Renner said of his dings. "I should be good."
It all transpired in front of newly appointed athletic director Bubba Cunningham, who was introduced Friday as Dick Baddour's replacement. Cunningham's first order of business will be to appoint a permanent replacement for Butch Davis and begin to patch and soothe a fan base fractured over 16 months since the NCAA first starting asking questions and eventually a head coach was fired. Cunningham will leave his post at Tulsa and officially begin work at Carolina on Nov. 14, but you can be sure in the interim he will be evaluating Everett Withers and staff from a distance and working his extensive instincts and contacts in the world of college football.
Anyone worried that the recent thorniness around Carolina football signals in any way a de-emphasis of the sport in Chapel Hill can take comfort in the bona fides Cunningham brings to the football discussion. He is a Notre Dame graduate and spent 15 years on the Fighting Irish athletic staff during the tenures of football coaches Lou Holtz, Bob Davie and, for one year, Tyrone Willingham. So he's certainly well-versed in a football-centric environment. In two previous athletic directorships, Cunningham hired football coaches who were so successful that larger institutions swept them away--Brady Hoke at Ball State (now at Michigan) and Todd Graham at Tulsa (now at Pittsburgh).
"From the standpoint of the committee and for me personally as a football fan, it was very important to know the guy we reached out to had extensive football experience, number one, and had made successful hires, number two," says Dwight Stone, a 1973 Carolina graduate and member of the committee appointed to recommend AD candidates to Chancellor Holden Thorp. "Bubba certainly qualifies on both counts.
"But the football equation is more than just getting the right coach. There's the marketing perspective, ticket sales, the fan experience, the student experience. Bubba made it very clear that he wants our student-athletes to have a positive experience but our student body as a whole to have a positive experience from athletics. He understands how the entire university benefits from having nationally competitive athletic programs. We've been fortunate with this very long run we've had in basketball. Now I'm really excited about what Bubba can help us accomplish in football."
Of course, that's fodder for discussions to come a month from now. For the near term, the Tar Heels are looking at a gauntlet of Clemson, Wake Forest and N.C. State in succession, two of those games in rabid and unfriendly environments.
Miami's first possession on Saturday was a textbook display of a good game plan from Golden's coaching staff and precise execution by the Hurricanes. Though tailback Lamar Miller had been the Hurricanes' stud attraction through five games--eclipsing the hundred-yard rushing threshold each Saturday--coordinator Jedd Fisch adroitly recognized that the Tar Heels were strongest against the run and weakest against the pass.
Miami's offensive personality has changed over a year with the maturation of senior quarterback Jacory Harris and Fisch giving him a diet of short and intermediate throws rather than the do-or-die home-run balls favored by former coordinator Mark Whipple. A shell-shocked Harris was intercepted four times by the Tar Heels in Kenan Stadium two years ago and had thrown 32 picks over the last two seasons--the most of any quarterback in college football. But entering Saturday's game, he had thrown only three to opponents in 2011 and had tossed nine touchdowns.
"He's trusting his teammates and showed a lot of poise," Golden said. "Other guys in the country are throwing for 400 yards, but Jacory is throwing the ball out of bounds when he needs to. I think he's really settling in. He's doing all the things you expect from somebody who has played as much football has he has."
Miami struck methodically after winning the coin toss and electing to take the ball, much of its 70 yards on quick strikes to the flat or screens over the middle. The Hurricane receivers blocked effectively on the Tar Heel cornerbacks and safeties, and tight end Chase Ford cleared out Tar Heel linebacker Darius Lipford on a four-yard touchdown pass. Earlier freshman cornerback Tim Scott missed a tackle on a third-down that would have stopped the Hurricanes at the Carolina 25. Often times it's just as simple as blocking and tackling.
Harris completed 20 of 30 passes for 267 yards and no interceptions and showed infinitely more poise as the Tar Heels were rallying than he did two years ago in a hostile environment as Tar Heel cornerback Kendric Burney was swiping three passes, one of them going 77 yards for a touchdown.
"That was tough in the second half," Golden said. "Jacory was running for his life a couple of times, and he didn't turn it over and he didn't panic and do one of those deals where you release it and say, `Man, what did I do?'"
Renner is facing the same learning curve in his first year as the Tar Heels' starting quarterback. He had an excellent outing in one sense--29 of 37 completions for 288 yards and two touchdowns. But he's kicking himself for missing an open Nelson Hurst in the end zone in the second quarter, leaving Carolina to kick a field goal, and for fumbling the ball away while being sacked in the third quarter. He was sacked four times, certainly one them on Carolina's final drive when his mobility was severely limited.
"I just can't take those sacks," Renner said. "... The more experience I gain in those situations, the better decisions I'll make. But that falls on me. I can't get sacked in those situations."
Renner might also have had a nifty touchdown on a quarterback draw following a head-and-shoulder fake to the left side from the Miami four, but a Tar Heel freshman tight end missed his block and Renner was stoned at the two. There's that blocking and tackling issue again. The Tar Heels were more effective in the second half, forcing five Miami punts on defense and holding a four-to-one advantage in total yards over the third and fourth quarters.
"We fought back late today and that's a credit to our character in all three phases," Renner said. "But we just didn't play well enough to win."
Which brings to mind another noted Lombardi quote: "If winning isn't everything, then why do they keep score?"
Lee Pace is in his 22nd season writing "Extra Points" and eighth covering Carolina games on the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. He and the network crew address your questions about the Tar Heels each week on the pregame show; you can email him at leepace7@gmail.com .
Players Mentioned
